Obama calls for end to FAA impasse

With the stalemate over the debt ceiling finally resolved, President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to end another impasse — the one that is keeping the Federal Aviation Administration in a partial shutdown — but there is little prospect it will act until after its August recess.

“There’s another stalemate in Congress right now involving our aviation industry which has stalled airport construction projects all around the country and put the jobs of tens of thousands of construction workers and others at risk — because of politics,” Obama said during his Rose Garden speech after the compromise bill to raise the debt ceiling won final approval in the Senate.

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“It’s another Washington-inflicted wound on America, and Congress needs to break that impasse now — hopefully before the Senate adjourns — so these folks can get back to work,” the president said.

Though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) seemed to indicate earlier Tuesday that he would work to solve the impasse, a spokesman for Reid said there won’t be any action on the bill until after the Senate returns in September. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also said Tuesday she was “hoping” that the FAA issue would “be resolved today.”

“There is bipartisan agreement that we should keep air travel employees and safety inspectors on the payroll while we work out our policy differences, but we are being blocked by a handful of Republicans,”Reid communications director Adam Jentleson said in a statement. “We should not let ideology interfere with making sure that Americans’ air travel runs as smoothly and safely as possible.”

The agency’s operating authority ended during the last week of July, with only air traffic controllers staying on the job, and disagreements between the Republican majority in the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate have kept it stalled.

The House bill includes a provision overturning a National Mediation Board ruling made last year that allows airline and railroad employees to unionize if a majority of voting employees agree. That rule is in line with the unionization rules in many other industries, though not in transportation. The previous rule — which gets Republican support — counted workers who didn’t vote as “no” votes, which made it much more difficult to organize.

As the agency’s partial shutdown continues, the federal government is losing $30 million a day in airline ticket taxes. The government has already lost $250 million in revenues since the shutdown began on July 23 and could lose another $1.2 billion if a bill to authorize the agency isn’t passed before the Senate goes into recess.

In a conference call with reporters, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged the Senate to pass the House bill that would allow 4,000 FAA employees to go back to work, and give the agency permission to restart hundreds of construction projects that were sidetracked by the congressional deadlock.

“Our message is: don’t go home on vacation until you put people back to work,” LaHood said.

The secretary said he’s spoken to Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chair of the transportation committee, and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.), the ranking member, along with Reid “and other staff on Capitol Hill” to work out a plan.